Auction Name: 2025 December 19 - 21 Winter Sports Catalog Auction

Lot Number: 81526

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/50081*81526

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan Rookie #57 PSA Gem Mint 10. It's been a century and a half since the Wright brothers of Cincinnati appeared with their fellow Red Stockings upon the first sports trading card, and the hobby thunders ever onward from those earliest days in myriad formats too plentiful to enumerate. But for those purists with a concentration in the post-war hobby, it is widely considered that the opening and closing bookends are represented by the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 and the card presented in glorious condition here, the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57.

What would follow in the wake of this historic set (of which Jordan is simply the most noteworthy, but far from the only key card) has been a mixture of mass production so profound as to leave thirty-year-old, shrink-wrapped sets priced below their original rates, and the practice of special insert cards produced in extremely limited populations so as to provide a form of rarity that no "standard issue" set possibly could.

So while Michael Jordan is commonly and properly considered to be the start of multiple new eras--from NBA domination to a sports marketing empire like no other--here he marks the end of a different era. No standard-issue card after this one ever has, or ever will, command such rapt attention or massive prices.

With hundreds of millions trapped in their homes during the global pandemic without any sports but "The Last Dance" documentary to enjoy, a new generation entered the Church of Jordan as devout adherents, fueling a pricing boom that provides the most undeniable validation of trading cards as a viable form of financial asset diversification. There's a massive global audience fighting for just 330 PSA Gem Mint 10 examples of this card, and there's every reason to believe that audience will only continue to grow.

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